Jonstown Jottings #8: Rubble Runners - A collection of Pavis Characters

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford's mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.

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What is it?Rubble Runners - A collection of Pavis Characters is a collection of fifteen NPCs and almost eighty members of the supporting cast and scenario hooks.

It is a thirty-nine page, full colour, 5.97 MB PDF.

Rubble Runners - A collection of Pavis Characters is well presented and reasonably well written, but needs a thorough edit from start to finish. The illustrations are decent, being photographs reworked by the author.

Where is it set?
The content of Rubble Runners - A collection of Pavis Characters is set in Pavis and civilised Prax, specifically in the years 1625, 1626, and 1627 after Prince Argrath White Bull has defeated  Lunar forces at the Second Battle of Moonbroth and liberated the city and drove out it Lunar occupiers—mostly at the point of a sword.Who do you play?The supplement primarily consists of NPCs, though some NPCs can be used as player characters.

What do you need?
Rubble Runners - A collection of Pavis Characters requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and a whole lot more. Being set in New Pavis and its environs, to get the full benefit of this supplement, the Game Master will require access to various supplements including Cults of Prax, Pavis, Big Rubble, and Borderlands for RuneQuest II or River of Cradles, Sun County, and Shadows on the Borderlands for RuneQuest III.

Note that this is at the time of publication of Rubble Runners - A collection of Pavis Characters and will change when a new supplement dedicated to Pavis and the Big Rubble is published. 

What do you get?
Rubble Runners - A collection of Pavis Characters is a collection of fifteen NPCs, each of which is accompanied by five or six associates and contacts—their supporting cast and five or six encounter and plot hooks. Every NPC includes a half to full page description and background, full stats for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, an illustration, and the aforementioned supporting cast, encounters, and hooks.

Many of the characters in Rubble Runners - A collection of Pavis Characters are connected to each other, either directly as friends or family, or through the members of the supporting cast they have in common. Yet what really connects this diverse range of characters in the supplement is that they have all been affected by the bloody expulsion of the Lunar occupation. In this the supplement draws its inspiration from the Wild West following the American Civil War, as well as the cinema that it inspired. That said, the nastiness and antipathy expressed by and towards some of the NPCs in this supplement echoes that of occupied Europe following its liberation at the end of World War II.

One further limiting factor to the supplement is not the setting itself, but the nature of that setting. Rubble Runners - A collection of Pavis Characters is predominately a city supplement and there few cities in Glorantha which are large enough and urbanised enough to support this range of characters and their elements. Nevertheless, if the Game Master has such access to such a setting or is using New Pavis, this supplement is a ready-made cast into which the Game Master can draw her player characters, involve them in each other’s plans and objectives, and so help build towards an ongoing campaign.

Is it worth your time?
Yes. Rubble Runners - A collection of Pavis Characters is a solid set of inventive NPCs, a good mix of contacts, friends, foes, employers, and more. Particularly useful for the Game Master running a campaign set in New Pavis.
No. If the Game Master is not running a campaign set in New Pavis—or planning to take her campaign to New Pavis, Rubble Runners - A collection of Pavis Characters is not a useful supplement.
Maybe. Even if the Game Master is not running a campaign in New Pavis, the content of Rubble Runners - A collection of Pavis Characters may still be of interest. Some of the characters contained in its pages can be used as player characters, pulled out and used in other settings, or simply used as inspiration for NPCs of the Game Master’s own design.